Generally, a hand-operated pump is classified as a drop-type pump used in shampoo containers or cosmetics containers or as a spray-type pump used in perfume containers or mosquito repellent containers.
Especially, a small-sized hand-operated pump has been normally used in cosmetics containers that discharge a predetermined amount of liquid or emulsion content each time because of its convenience. In this case, the hand-operated pump has been widely used because of its characteristics that a predetermined amount of content can be easily discharged each time by the hand-operated pump while the content is stored in the container, and technologies related to the hand-operated pump have been continuously developed.
Meanwhile, the conventional hand-operated pump mainly includes a housing forming the external appearance of the pump, a closure used to mount the housing to a container, a stem communicating with the outlet port of a cap and vertically movable along the housing, a shaft for guiding the vertical movement of the stem and connecting the stem to the cap, a piston mounted to the stem such that the piston can be vertically moved along the inner wall of the housing, a spring mounted to the inner lower part of the housing, and a ball for opening and closing the inlet port formed in the lower end of the housing.
The conventional hand-operated pump is constructed in a structure in which the hand-operated pump is mounted principally in a cylindrical or prismatic container case. To this end, it is required that the conventional hand-operated pump have a specific width.
Also, the conventional hand-operated spray pump is constructed in a structure having a large thickness and a large volume. As a result, the conventional hand-operated spray pump is not suitable for a small-sized spray pump that is mounted in a perfume container to spray a small amount of perfume.
Recently, as the demand of consumers has abruptly changed, a large number of samples for sales promotion have been provided, and the size of these samples is normally small. For this reason, there is high necessity for a small-sized hand-operated spray pump constructed in a light-weighted and thin structure including a small-sized container.